A Big Nail In The Maoist Coffin

It's a preface to the final end as Chhattisgarh's most dreaded Maoist fighter falls

- Rahul Noronha

IT COULD HAVE BECOME ONE MORE HIGH-PROFILE MAOIST surrender, if it had panned out in one of the two ways Chhattisgarh was chalking it out.

Last week, deputy CM Vijay Sharma had even had a lunch meeting with Madvi Hidma's mother, and an appeal was sent out to her son soon after to lay down arms, like many of his former confreres had done. The other option was old-fashioned: a gunbattle in the jungles. But of all the Maoist insurgents the security forces had faced off, he was the most lethal, the most adept at guerrilla warfare-and the most elusive. He was also the only one truly at home in Bastar.